N$1 million more for education

SOS Children Villages Namibia, with sponsorship from the Foschini Group donated N$1 million to two schools in Windhoek as its contribution to help improve education standards.
The distress-relief organisation has set its sights on A Shipena Secondary School and Otjomuise Primary School due to poor or lack of proper educational equipment. SOS Director Ms Simonee Shihepo said with the grade 10 and 12 qualifying points increasing to 27 from its current 23, pupils need to be better equipped noting that the sponsorship from the Foschini group could not have come at a more opportune time.
“For quality education, and looking at the results of last year, we at SOS fully support the sentiments of the minister of education in her bid to increase the qualifying points of grade 10 and 12 to 27. Since our key areas of support lie in teachers, learners, care givers, and implementation of curricula, amongst others, the Foshini donation will help us achieve our goals,” Shihepo said during the launch of the education-for-empowerment programme.
“The Namibian statistics indicated that youth unemployment increased from 37% to 41% in 2014 while the national unemployment rate stands at 29.6%. Against this background it is critical that relationships amongst private entities are viable in ensuring quality education,” Shihepo stated. “High drop-out rates has led to high crime rates and the ever increasing unemployment among young people, Christine Aochamus, marketing coordinator for SOS said. “The empowerment project is aimed at increasing quality educational opportunities for socially disadvantaged children, while striving to improved quality of life,” she added.
“The overall age group of learners is 6 to 17 years with inclusion of learners that might complete their school later than the average age at which learners complete school. Being a key player in Child and Youth development, the SOS Children’s Villages through the education empowerment project seeks to support the development of education in partnership with the ministry of education to realize the goals of quality education for all” she said.
Education is the largest recipient in the 2016/17 development budget, with a combined allocation of N$16.20 billion for the year and N$52.28 billion over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework. The Ministry of Basic Education, Arts and Culture receives N$12.79 billion in the budget year or 79% of the total allocation to the education sector, while the Ministry of Higher Education and Innovation receives N$3.41 billion in the budget year and N$11.48 billion over the MTEF.